20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

When my alarm woke me at dawn after maybe an hour of sleep, my worries came flooding back. Connor was still asleep; it was daytime and he was on vampire time like I should have been, but I had to stay on academy time or going back would be a bitch. It would be jet lag times a million – no thank you.

I had to stay awake so I decided to use the time to creepily watch my boyfriend sleep then maybe read the manual he’d brought me. First, though, I checked on my animals. Fluffy wanted out. For the life of me I didn’t know why he didn’t shift and use the facilities, but I guessed his need to be Fluffy outweighed his discomfort at having to wait to be let out to go to the toilet. We had a long way to go. I comforted myself with Stan’s words: it would take time, but it would be possible for him to acclimatise to a human life again.

Shadow rubbed my legs, purred, then looked pointedly at his empty dishes. I had no idea what food Connor had brought so I checked the small fridge. There was a bag of the raw food mix I kept for Shadow at home; Connor must have grabbed some from the freezer. I’d had the vet and the internet help me come up with a diet for a lynx. It was a mess to make because I had to grind several types of meat together with vitamins and minerals, but it was worth it to have a healthy kitten.

Since I didn’t want to disturb Connor, I sat down at the tiny kitchen table in Fluffy and Shadow’s room to read the manual. I started with the section Tracking with a K-9 because it was something we did a lot at work and I was comfortable with it. The other two topics were Search and Rescue and Drug Detecting . I shivered as I thought about the Savik brothers on our first search and rescue. We’d retrieved bodies, not living men – but at least we’d found them.

Drug Detecting also made me wince. Technically, our fisheye case was still open. We knew who had been dealing in town, but the case had become much more involved when an army general had shown up and we became aware that Portlock had been chosen as a black government site for experimenting on supernats. The damned black-ops soldiers were still on the loose, and I feared they were using fisheye and other drugs in other paranormal towns. Taking them down was still very much on my to-do list.

The textbook was comprehensive, and I realised that Gunnar already knew all this stuff because he’d had Killer, a real trained K-9. Although Fluffy had never been formally trained, it was clear that Gunnar had been quietly teaching him when we went out on calls, so a lot of the information wasn’t as new as I’d feared it would be.

By the time I’d finished reading, I was feeling a lot more optimistic. We could absolutely do this – or at least Fluffy could and I could act as if I knew what I was doing. Fake it till you make it.

I checked the clock: 5pm. I hurriedly looked up the time for sunset on my phone: 6.20pm. I had a little time to kill, time to sneak back into our apartment and get cleaned up. I was in the mood for a long, luxurious shower.

I was rinsing my hair and indulging in the warm water when a hand snaked in and touched my shoulder. My eyes were closed so I squealed and jumped, but the hand was followed by a very warm and naked man whom I instantly recognised.

‘I was trying to let you sleep,’ I said as I turned to face him. It was a very small shower. It would have been hard to pick up the soap if you dropped it, even if you were alone; it would have been impossible if you were sharing the minuscule unit with another person.

‘I can sleep at home. Right now you’re here, warm and wet in the shower and smelling of…’ he checked the shampoo bottle ‘…lavender and vanilla. How could I resist?’

‘If you want more than your hair washed, we’ll have to get out of this tiny shower. There is zero room to manoeuvre,’ I said with a flirty lilt in my voice.

‘You think so, do you?’ Connor gave a confident smirk.

I kissed him quickly. ‘I know so!’ Then I put my hands out and touched all three walls of the shower and the curtain. 'See? No room for shenanigans.'

Connor’s eyes twinkled. In a single move, he lifted me up against the shower wall. ‘Hey! That’s cold!’ I objected.

He grinned. ‘I’ve got a few ideas on how to warm you up.’

I shivered – and not because of the cold plastic tiles against my wet skin. ‘Oh, it’s like that is it?’ I wrapped my legs around him and leaned down to kiss him again.

It turned out that the small shower was big enough to get really dirty in.

When Connor dropped me off at the end of the Commander’s Weekend, I was exhausted. Between enjoying him and practising with Fluffy for our demonstrations, I’d had very little sleep – though I wasn’t complaining in the slightest. It was exactly the pick-me-up I’d needed, even if I couldn’t stop yawning.

I’d pushed the poltergeist’s ominous message to the back of my mind. I hadn’t mentioned the threat to Connor because he had a tendency to overreact to death threats to my person; also, it was hard to get worked up about Petty’s message. Something about the whole thing felt off, but for the life of me I couldn’t put my finger on what. However, when we drove up the academy, it all came rushing back. It was time for me to roll up my sleeves and get stuck in.

I kissed Connor, ruffled Fluffy’s ears and collected my bag. ‘See you,’ Connor said simply.

I smiled. ‘See you.’ He would be on the island a little longer to look after Fluffy until it was time for his academy K-9 debut, so this wasn’t goodbye. I’d get to see him again soon, even if it was for only a handful of precious seconds as he dropped off and picked up Fluffy. I’d do my damnedest to make sure we had some time for fraternisation.

I waved them goodbye and turned back to the academy with a bounce in my step. I was going to solve Petty’s mystery if it was the last thing I did.